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We need to make it clear there's nothing scientific about Social "Sciences", or risk losing the credibility real Sciences deserve.
by wtcactus 4y ago
We need to make it clear there's nothing scientific about Social "Sciences", or risk losing the credibility real Sciences deserve.
- jfengel 4y agoIronically, I'd say that faking date affirms that social sciences are sciences. If they weren't sciences, there wouldn't be data to fake. "Hard" sciences are more fun, because they get to work with simple things and form rigid rules about them. But social sciences are arguably more important, because they inform the decisions we make every day about how to live in groups. You can't just say, "Well, it's hard to model people with differential equations, so let's just take guesses about how people are doing." Dismissing soft sciences doesn't reflect well on the hard sciences. It says "We scientists can't do difficult things, so we're just going to punt on it and pretend it's not worth thinking about."
- wtcactus 4y agoThat's a strange definition for what constitutes a science. Having data to measure. That would make: literature, arts, law school, sports, and basically any other discipline a science, since all of disciplines have some amount of data to measure. Dismissing soft “sciences” only says they aren't sciences. Want to do Sociology, ok, go ahead, just don't call it a “science”. By now it's very clear these disciplines only call themselves sciences, to try and get some veneer of authority for what they are actually doing: ideological studies. Also, let's always remember that the departments of sociology in the USA, were the main proponents and spreaders of the theories of white racial superiority in the beginning of the XX century. All in the guise of science.